


Therapists hate him! See how this king handles his recent losses in the worst way possible!

by Clicking_of_needles



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Handplates, M/M, Regret, Size Difference, Soul Sex, Unrequited Love, Video Game Mechanics, Weird Sex, as in bullet pattern orgasms again, grief and extremely bad ways to deal with it, incompatible body types, kind of, kingdings, soul fingering, swallow your feelings down until you die and bury them with you
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-25 08:27:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22493047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clicking_of_needles/pseuds/Clicking_of_needles
Summary: Dealing with sudden unbelievable grief can make you do a lot of unwise, unexpected things.Or people, in this case.(Handplates AU)
Relationships: Asgore Dreemurr/W. D. Gaster, asgore/toriel (past)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 55





	Therapists hate him! See how this king handles his recent losses in the worst way possible!

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the Handplates AU by zarla.

Asgore didn't mean for this to happen. 

That... might have been a lie. 

Perhaps it'd be more accurate to say that he didn't actually think it _would_ happen... that he had acted without thinking that things would... keep progressing.

How had this happened? What had he done?

He had been lost, deep in a well-worn pit of nihilistic despair, unable to bring himself to even try to consider the point of living. Caring for himself felt impossible. Everything around him, everything he should have done, every thought belonged to her and she was gone. They'd been together for hundreds of years - he did not know how to live without her. He COULDN'T live without her. He was sure that he would die any minute, the pain of it just too much to bear. 

And there was Gaster, as loyal and dependable as always. Every day he came to see him, every day Asgore was dimly aware of Gaster doing things that he shouldn't have had to do, chores and errands that weren't his responsibility. The weight of Asgore's self-hatred only made it harder for him to fight its pull... a continuing spiral downwards as he watched Gaster silently tidy things around the kitchen, flip through cookbooks, pick up things off the floor. Through it all the skeleton kept that same stoic expression, unreadable as always. 

Dimly, Asgore knew that Gaster had cared for Toriel as well... that the two of them had been close, in a way that even he had not really fully understood. Her disappearance must have been a heavy burden on Gaster as well, but Gaster said nothing, and he betrayed nothing, and the pain of it was so blinding for Asgore that he could barely think of himself, much less of others. More weights to keep him in his spiral, to drag him down and drown him. He could not live without her. He did not deserve to. 

He asked Gaster why he was doing these kind of things for him, and Gaster only said they had to be done. He asked him why he was putting so much effort into trying to keep Asgore afloat, and Gaster said that he could not allow for anything else. 

Gaster had always had trouble with losing people. Under his cool adherence to protocol, his apparent disinterest in affection, was an intense clinginess that Asgore had enjoyed teasing him about, once, in brighter, sunnier days that now felt like a dream. It was hard to imagine that there could have been days down here in their eternal prison that could have been bright and euphoric, but in comparison to how he felt now...

Asgore wasn't sure how much time had passed since she'd left him, but it felt like an eternity. He couldn't remember how he'd lived a life once without her. He knew logically somewhere that there had been periods in his life once that did not have her in it, but they did not feel real. All of his life had involved her, revolved around her. Like she was the air he breathed, like she was a part of him down through his skin and his fur, and now she was gone. He could not hold her, or touch her, or be close to her, or comfort her or be comforted by her, and it was his fault. It was his fault, and he knew that. He _knew_ that he'd done this to himself, and he didn't know what to do with that. A vise closed tighter around him every day.

Why was he even alive? This pain should have been enough to kill him. Gaster had put away all the children's toys early on, and even the pain of losing them paled in comparison to losing her. And that in itself was its own kind of heavy guilt.

It hurt all the time. Pain, heaviness, no escape. No escape. He didn't deserve to escape but still, some days he longed for a few moments when things just didn't _hurt_. Some kind of relief from his eternal life and how he'd ruined it.

Maybe that was what made him do it. In the end, did it really matter?

Another day, another night. Gaster was there, as he always was. He came every day as though it were his second job. He said little to Asgore except to ask him if he wanted anything, if he was hungry. What was Gaster thinking about? Was he thinking of her? Asgore couldn't tell, he couldn't read the expression on his face.

The day was coming to a close, and Asgore had gotten up and was heading to his bedroom, and Gaster was walking in front of him, mumbling to himself as he ticked off something invisible with one hand. Thinking about his actual work, or what he'd done here today, or what other tasks he might do while Asgore tried to sleep. As subtle as it was Gaster was in constant motion, unable to sit and be completely still.

They entered the bedroom, and Gaster moved towards the bookshelf, scanning the spines without saying a word to him. His shoulders were drawn in close, his arms near his sides as though he wanted to take up as little space as possible. Making way for him, as he often did.

Gaster referred to himself as "your scientist" when Asgore asked him why he was here. Was that all it was? Gaster had always chosen his words carefully.

Asgore wasn't thinking very clearly. He wasn't sure it had really registered in his mind before he was doing it. He came over to Gaster by the bookshelf, reached out with one large paw to turn him around to face him. Gaster followed his guidance without hesitation, blinking up at Asgore with faint curiousity. He looked tired, but he always looked tired. 

Gaster said something, an incomprehensible garble of sounds, but Asgore didn't bother to look for his hands to decipher it... he knew those particular sounds well by now. A questioning, "Your majesty?", soft.

What was he doing? Gaster didn't move, his eye socket tightening slightly as he tried to make sense of this new data, no doubt. Asgore looped one arm around his waist to draw him in closer, then brought his other hand underneath Gaster's chin to tilt his face up towards his own. Gaster stumbled, momentarily, when he brought him close, but he did not try to move away from him. He was frozen, rigid, confused no doubt, but still, it was hard to read him. A skeleton was lacking in a lot of key facial features. Perhaps it was concern he could see in his one eye socket?

Already, having another living body close to his own brought back memories, reignited something that had fallen dormant, thoughts of a way that might bring him a few moments of peace, or at least distraction. Asgore leaned down a little and licked his forehead, slowly. For a moment, he wondered if the meaning of the gesture would be lost on Gaster - he wasn't a mammalian monster, he didn't HAVE a tongue - but then he thought, Gaster had spent enough time around him and Toriel that it wouldn't have been new to him, and how he stiffened with a faint sound seemed to confirm it. 

"Your majesty, what are you doing...?" Gaster used his spectral hands to sign, apparently not wanting to move his physical ones from where they were between them. Asgore couldn't understand Gaster's cipher, but he'd spent enough time with him to be able to recognize his tone. It shivered with confusion and hesitance, he could feel unclear tension threading through his bones. Asgore didn't want him to be scared, and he tightened his embrace around him without thinking, prompting another faint confused sound. 

Was it him specifically, or did he just want to be close to anyone...? Asgore wasn't sure he was even thinking that rationally, though tendrils of guilt kept going through his thoughts. He ran his tongue across his skull again - he tasted faintly of smoke - and Asgore's fur prickled as though in a sudden breeze. Magic, and when he pulled back to look at him, Gaster's eyes were glowing... that would explain it. It was a strange pinkish, yellowish color he'd never seen before... he wasn't sure what emotion he was trying to convey to him. Was he even aware he was doing it? 

Gaster said something again, and Asgore looked, briefly, for hands but didn't see any moving. _I can't understand you if you don't sign_ , he wanted to say, but instead he pulled Gaster closer, enveloping him in his arms, holding him tight with another affectionate run with his tongue, and he heard Gaster let out a shaky breath in something that might have been appreciation... but might not. It was hard to tell.

He barely took up any space in his arms. Through his clothing he could feel his bones, thin and light, all of him felt suddenly fragile in a way that was foreign to him. Asgore wanted to get closer to him... how close could he get to him? To anyone, anymore?

Gaster was saying something in his ear, his hands wound in his hair, and Asgore told himself he should be paying attention, tried to bring his thoughts back. _Your majesty, your majesty,_ he was almost sure. Gaster must have wanted to tell him something, and Asgore reluctantly loosed his embrace, setting him back on the floor beside his bed. Gaster looked as breathless as a skeleton could look, magic flickering across his cheekbones, the closest approximation his kind had to blushing.

"Your majesty..." Gaster signed to him, and Asgore waited for him to continue. Instead, Gaster stopped like something had gotten caught in his throat, jerked his gaze away from him, drew his hands in close to his chest with a faint tremor along his shoulders. Asgore thought, _I should say something, I should ask him if he's alright, if he wants this, if this is okay,_ but instead, he placed one large paw on his chest. Gaster looked up at him, glowing that same odd color, and when Asgore pushed him back onto the bed, gently, Gaster did not resist.

Asgore crawled onto the bed after him, over him, already committed to this somehow, he told himself, as long as Gaster seemed...

The buttons on Gaster's shirt were too small for his large fingers, he didn't even bother trying. Instead, he hooked a claw into the collar of Gaster's shirt and tugged, once. Gaster made a faint, strange noise in response, turning his head away to look at the wall while his hands came up to undo the buttons himself. Asgore watched the fabric slip away to reveal his ribcage and within, his SOUL, clear and bright. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen it, and it was hard to take his eyes off of it. Maybe Gaster could tell how he was looking at it, as he mumbled something unintelligible to him, his face still turned away.

Asgore knew he was a skeleton, it was impossible not to know, but he couldn't help but think that certain things between them would still be the same... would have some kind of equivalent. Magic worked in strange ways. But when he stripped Gaster of his pants as well, he found... only bones. He wasn't sure what he was expecting to find otherwise, and Gaster looked reasonably confused at his interest in the region. But for Asgore...

Maybe it wouldn't mean anything to him, being a skeleton, but it'd mean something to Asgore, some way to pretend they were connected, in a way he was more familiar with... something. It was hard to remember, he wasn't thinking very clearly. There was a hole in his hip bones, the pelvis if he remembered right, and that would do. It was the principle of the thing. He took hold of Gaster's legs to position him, again marveling at how thin they felt in his hands, and without resistance or much fanfare he slid... through him, would be the more accurate term. Gaster didn't react in any way... why would he? It was just a hole in his bones, but Asgore couldn't help but let out a sigh in spite of himself. It was too loose, there was no pressure, the edges were hard, but it was the meaning of it, the fact that he had Gaster here, he was inside of him, technically.

Gaster started to say something, another garbled noise, and then Asgore leaned down over him, his hands by his head, and he fell quiet. Gaster rested his hands gingerly on Asgore's arms, as though he did not know where else to put them. He stared at him with what he thought might be some kind of expectation.

With his SOUL so vulnerable and open to him... with him looking at him like that, with how little anything else would matter to him, with how incompatible their bodies were... 

Asgore lifted one hand to run it down the front of his ribs, down and under, and before Gaster could get out much of a protest, he was touching _him_ , everything that he was. Whatever it was Gaster was going to say died in his throat, replaced with a thick gasp as his fingers dug into Asgore's arms. Magic flickered around his eyes more strongly, a deeper color. 

Now that Asgore was touching him, this close to him, he could feel all the threads that made up Gaster's soul, his body, his mind, all so brittle and thin, a haphazard collection of traits and memories that ended up making someone who they were. Magic had a convenient way of making emotions physical, and as he stroked his SOUL with his fingers, he could feel encouragement and desire trickling down his fur. Gaster wanted this, he wanted him to touch him like this... and as though he knew he knew, Gaster turned his face away from him with his eyes shut in apparent shame, trying to hide his face with the back of one of his hands. 

Asgore could feel it radiating in his SOUL, that faint pulse of shame and self-hatred and fear, but it paled in comparison to how desperately Gaster wanted more, how it burned and blazed in him like a growing fire. His SOUL stuck to his fingers as he moved them back and forth, it throbbed and pulsed as it slowly covered his hand with shimmering liquid want. With each bit of movement, Gaster made a shaking, pathetic sound, something he'd never heard from him... weak and unsure and unconscious, pleading gasps when he slowed. He didn't know Gaster could make sounds like that, and even with the language barrier between them, he could hear how much he wanted it as plain as day. And knowing he was doing that to him, made him want to...

It was almost unconscious, how he moved his hips against him, how the rhythm he set shifted Gaster's body back and forth a little, the faintest approximation of how it normally went, but it didn't matter at the moment. He pressed his fingers hard against him and Gaster arched his back with a loud, garbled sound, breaking into what might have been a frustrated whine, his eyes still tightly closed. He panted and embarrassment and pleasure flowed from him in equal measure. Once movement became mechanical and mindless, it became easier to increase in speed and vigor, to thrust into him, or the illusion of him, with power that filled his thoughts with nothing else. Each movement was punctuated with a soft sound from below him, his equivalent of "ah" perhaps, though he wasn't sure. Gaster wasn't signing, and he wasn't reading either way.

The sounds grew in pitch and speed, increasingly loud, and Gaster's SOUL felt alive under his fingers, beating so hard that he was sure that he couldn't last much longer. Perhaps Gaster knew that as well, as he clawed at his arms with his hands, his head thrown back, as though he was fighting against it. There was little he could do in the position he was in, and why would he? Where had the thought come from? Asgore thought he could pick out "your majesty" in the midst of the breathless barrage of sound, but he couldn't be entirely sure. As Gaster came closer, Asgore moved against him quicker, wanting to match him, driven on by the thought that he was this close to him, that he was doing this to him, that Gaster had allowed him to...

Gaster tightened his legs around him, he dug into his arms with his fingers so hard that it almost hurt, and he made a strangled, choked sound through gritted teeth before he threw his head back with a loud and wavering cry. His SOUL shuddered powerfully before sending out a wave of bones that passed through Asgore harmlessly, leaving a pleasant tingling sensation in their wake. He couldn't help stroking him again with his fingers, and he was rewarded with another wave of bullets and another shivering moan. How many could he wring out of him, he wondered...? He kept at it, leaning down closer over him, keeping his fingers and hips in motion and Gaster gasped for breath, wave after wave coming from outside his control, until his voice was hoarse, his bones rattling uncontrollably. "Your majesty" he heard in the sounds again, calling for him, nearly senseless. Something in him seized, tightened, blanked his mind, stopped everything else, and his own bullets flowed from him to join Gaster's in the air, hovering and flicking around each other.

It took a moment for his vision to clear, the pleasure and intensity of the release catching him off-guard, and when he blinked the fog away, he saw Gaster panting feebly underneath him, his arms loose by his head, occasionally twitching as though he didn't have the strength to move on his own. Something glittered below, and he could see the remnants of his more physical release spattered up Gaster's spine, across his own chest... had some reached Gaster's SOUL, as far up as it was? 

They stayed that way for a while, just trying to catch their breath, and Gaster was looking up at him, his eyes glowing that strange color again, and he didn't know what it meant. Slowly the realization of where he was, what he'd just done, was coming through his thoughts. How had this happened? How could he do this?

He'd said so little, but finally words came to him.

"Why... why did you let me do that to you...?"

Gaster stared up at him, still glowing that odd color, and then he turned his head away, covering his face with one hand. His breath caught.

What had he done?

His hand was still within Gaster's ribcage, no longer touching his SOUL but close to it, thin strands of magic connecting them together. What was it he was feeling from him? That devotion, that loyalty that he'd known for so long, that ran so deep into him, all of it mixed up, churning with something else, something dark and cold, something wounded and dusty. Something he shouldn't be seeing, something he shouldn't know, and the awareness that he was looking far deeper into someone than anyone ever should, than any king should into his scientist, surely. Gaster had always been such a private person, and without asking, without even thinking he'd...

Like they were more than what they were, and how could he let his loneliness get so out of control?

Gaster's glasses were askew, pressed against the bedspread as they were, and he could see a faint trail running from the corner of one of his eyes down his skull. He was breathing steadily, but shakily, and still silent. Of course. 

"I..." In his addled state it was hard to find the right words, to put them together. "I, I don't know what came over me... Gaster, I'm so sorry."

Gaster's breath caught again, his teeth in a grimace, his eyes shut tight, fighting back emotion. He'd seen him do that before, many times, although he'd never seen it in this kind of context. He'd hoped his words would help, but they seemed to do the opposite.

"I thought..." What was it Asgore thought? That Gaster could replace her? That Gaster would be willing to do something like that, be that for him? How could he treat someone who cared about him, that he cared about like this, who'd done so much for him like this? The brightness of that brief moment of physical pleasure only made the drop back down into despair that much more gut-wrenching.

And in the midst of his spiral, something kept sticking, something kept flickering in the periphery of his thoughts, inescapable. Asgore had been touching him, he'd been as close to Gaster as anyone could get, to the point where there were little to no barriers, and what he'd felt from him, what had kept him going...

"How long have you wanted me to do that to you...?" Asgore breathed without thinking, the repercussions of the thought too large to actually engage with, consider. At that, Gaster's voice actually did catch in a sob, and that quickly drove the question from his mind. "Gaster, are you-"

Gaster interrupted him with a stream of nonsense sounds, and more than ever Asgore wished that language barrier didn't stand so firm between them. Whatever it was he was saying, he was so intent on saying it that he wasn't stopping to catch his breath. 

"You have to sign, Gaster, remember, your hands..."

Gaster stopped to catch himself, his eyes still shut tight, and he got shivering arms in motion but it wasn't complete. He was talking, but his hands weren't making complete sentences. Over and over, he kept coming back to the same sign - "sorry".

"Gaster, please, you're not making any sense..."

Gaster thought for a moment, then with a grunt, he set his hands against Asgore's arms and pushed. It wasn't hard to get the message - Asgore pulled his hand free from his ribcage, sat back and let Gaster move away from him, draw his long limbs back into himself. He folded up quickly, still shivering and short of breath, and he held up one hand in a gesture to wait.

Asgore hated to see him upset, hated to know that he'd caused it, hated himself for bringing this whole situation about, for not understanding him, for hurting someone who'd just been trying to help him, and how many times was he going to end up doing this? First with her, and now with him...

Long, awkward seconds passed as Gaster tried to regain control of himself, and finally, after what felt like ages, he took in a deep breath and adjusted his glasses. Comfortingly familiar, even with the him still naked and with telltale spots of Asgore's magic shining along his spine.

"Your majesty..." Gaster began, his hands still shaking. He kept his eye socket down, nearly closed, but he no longer seemed to be crying, and that was a relief. "I think you'd agree that this got a little out of hand, correct?"

Asgore's brow furrowed in concern, large and hard to pin into words. 

"I think we both may have done things that were... unwise." Still, he did not look him in the eyes. "It may be best if we just... forgot this happened."

"Forgot...?"

Logically, was there really any other outcome for this? What else could he have expected? Still, his brain wasn't working properly, he wasn't thinking clearly to do what he should have, to accept the reasonable conclusion and simply let the matter drop and disappear. What was wrong with him? Why was he like this? Why did he keep doing this?

"How long have you wanted me to do that to you?" Asgore asked again, still not fully comprehending the words. Their history together stretched back so long into the past, hundreds of years, and all of it felt blurry and faded. What existed now was them in this room, this strange, surreal moment in the opposite of afterglow.

Gaster winced, turning his head away as though he'd been physically struck.

"It's best if we forget this happened," his hands traced out.

"Gaster..."

"I know things have been difficult for you." The words made Asgore feel as though his SOUL was shrinking inside of him, like he could disappear into himself to avoid the shame. Again he screamed and screamed at himself, how could he _do_ this? How could he have let himself do something like this? "I understand that when we are... grieving, we may make decisions that... do not reflect who we really are."

So many things were going through him at once, and if he hadn't already spent most of his magic before in the puffs of fire that were still lighting up the floor of the room, he was sure weak blue flame would be crawling along his paws now. He was sinking inside himself in disgust, and the space in him was filling with a profound kind of sudden sadness.

"I think, when someone acts in these kind of... uncharacteristic ways... it is best not to dwell on who someone... isn't. Grief is a... strange process. It can make one do strange things. In the face of a large body of evidence as to who someone is... a statistical outlier should not be considered significant..."

The thought occurred to him that while he had seen all of Gaster, exposed under his fingers with no ability to hide who he was or what he thought, Gaster had seen nothing of him in return.

Asgore knew, without a doubt, how badly Gaster had wanted him to touch him. How badly he craved it and how much he hated himself for doing so. How powerfully the constant waves of shame echoed that longing for his touch. How desperately Gaster didn't want to want it, and yet still did in spite of his struggles. He'd felt it himself, right under his hands. It was still drying against his fur.

How long, he'd asked him. Asgore's eyes drifted down to the rumpled bedspread, his mind casting back, trying to find patterns that made some kind of sense. How constant and intense Gaster's devotion had always been, his unquestioning loyalty, his unfailing prioritization of him and Toriel over even his own life. His dislike for physical contact, his violent reaction to the thought of calling them family, his strict adherence to distant protocol even in private situations, the iron control he always had over his expressions and words whenever he was near them.

How long? How long? How could he have done this? Asgore lifted his hands to look at them, the faint trails of Gaster's magic tracing around his large fingers, down his fur, and how could he do this to him? To them? After everything, how could he have been so thoughtless? So selfish? How could he have... why did he always do this to the people he loved? How could he...

He heard sounds again, and lifted his head to look back to Gaster. The skeleton was still folded up across from him, but the look on his face was somewhere close to concern, to fear and confusion, hints of it creeping in along the edges of his eye socket. 

"Your majesty, please understand, I don't... hold what happened against you. Like I said, people can do... strange things, when they are grieving." It was a silent plea in his one eye - one that he had seen more than once - for Asgore to stop hurting, regardless of what that may cost him in return. "I understand that this was... not the kind of thing you would do, under normal circumstances. That's why I think it would be best if we just forgot about this entire thing. A statistical aberration like this isn't worth thinking about. It doesn't mean anything." The line of his teeth twitched, his eyesocket tightened for just that brief second. "It doesn't mean anything."

Asgore stared at him, this poor monster who'd spent so much of his life trying to please him, that he'd taken apart so carelessly, that he'd used so thoughtlessly to try and escape his own disaster of a life. A disaster of a life he'd created with his own hands and his own mistakes, one whose burden fell entirely on him. And now this, now he'd done _this_.

"You love me," Asgore mumbled, somewhat to himself, and again Gaster twitched in response, like he'd been pricked by a needle. He could see him searching for a response, his eye darting for an invisible answer.

"You are my king," Gaster finally said, without looking at him. His hands were trembling.

It was just the neutral response he should have expected from him, and in the midst of his internal turmoil, a faintly positive fluff of affection for him made a brief appearance. It ran to a deep well, and god, how he cared about him, how long and how deeply he'd cared about him.

For a moment, Asgore thought about it. 

Toriel was gone, and she was not coming back. They both knew that. What would happen if he just... kept pressing Gaster? Forced him to admit what he already knew was true? What would happen if he made Gaster face his fears, tell him his feelings? What would happen if he gave Gaster what he wanted, if he kept coming back to him, if they kept doing this?

What then? What was the realistic conclusion to this? Could he even see or think clearly enough to imagine the future? Even now, all he could picture was misery and suffering, the weight of his grief already suffocating him once again. If anything, doing this with him only added a new guilty weight on top of the others. What would she say, if she saw him now? If she knew he'd done this to him, to Gaster of all people? What would she say, if she knew what he'd done, how carelessly he'd used him, how thoughtlessly he'd looked into his darkest secrets? What would she say, if he considered continuing to use him to smother his own grief over her disappearance? Over the agony of his own mistakes?

Even though she was gone, he loved her, and even though she may never return, he'd betrayed her. Was he even capable of loving Gaster the way he wanted him to? What if he was simply trying to talk himself into using him again, what if he was trying to find excuses to continue hurting him for his own benefit? He couldn't do that to him... he couldn't keep hurting him. He couldn't keep hurting people with his own selfishness.

He'd felt it in his SOUL, when he was touching Gaster. It burned so clearly, so brightly, that even with the haze of conflicting emotion around it, it was unmistakable. Unshakable.

" _Why_ do you love me...?" Asgore mumbled, looking back down at his hands. At this moment, he couldn't imagine anything could be harder for someone else to do. How could anyone look at him with anything other than disgust?

Motion caught the edges of his vision, and he looked back up again, slowly.

"I don't understand the question," Gaster signed back to him, and he had a very familiar look on his face then. Confusion, but one that he was more familiar with - incredulous, disapproving. He'd seen it so many times when he'd explained so many simple social graces to Gaster, whenever he'd introduced something to Gaster that Gaster just did not approve of.

It was so refreshingly normal and familiar that Asgore felt his throat get tight all of a sudden. That brief bloom of affection burst back into life within him, blotting out everything else for a few moments.

"Oh Gaster," he said without thinking, smiling and warm.

Gaster, in response, tilted his head, his browbone furrowed more deeply in that same confusion. That affection remained, burned down deep and familiar paths. That Asgore knew and trusted, that had not changed at least.

He didn't want to hurt Gaster. He'd hurt so many people already.

And he didn't want to lose him either.

"I think you are right," Asgore said eventually with a long sigh, closing his eyes. "With everything that's happened, I have... not been myself. I have not been thinking clearly. And I am not making... thoughtful decisions."

He opened his eyes to find Gaster staring at him, not with the same confusion as before. It was a hard expression to read... intensely focused, but brittle, on edge. Waiting for the blow.

"And I know I'm not the only one grieving," Asgore said, and Gaster winced, turning his head away a little like he'd done something wrong. "It can make it very hard to figure out what to do. So I think you are right... I think it is best if we... forget this happened."

Gaster closed his eye socket and nodded, slow and grave.

"Maybe, when we are both in a better place, we can... discuss it." Although even as the words came from him, he knew that that was not going to happen.

"I understand," Gaster said, and he reached for his shirt, crumpled up against the wall. He was impassive now, quiet and stoic as always. His hands shivered as he placed it in his lap and continued. "It's the most sensible conclusion. I'll leave you to your rest once I get my clothes back in order."

Gaster had been so vulnerable not so long ago, and now the walls were back up again in full force. What was he thinking about? Surely Gaster wasn't expecting any other conclusion... forgetting about the entire affair had been his idea.

Still, something bothered Asgore. It didn't seem right for something like... this to have happened, for them to have done this, and for Gaster to just take his clothes and leave, shoulders bowed and silent. He already felt like he'd used him for his own pleasure, and sending Gaster away right after so he could sleep just made it feel that much more callous.

"You don't have to leave," Asgore said as Gaster buttoned up his shirt, and Gaster looked up at him again with that endearingly baffled expression.

"There's no reason for me to stay," he said before going back to his buttons. That brief flash of normality was so tempting, and in an attempt to reach out for it...

"Are you planning on going back to work?"

"I am always working." Gaster sniffed before reaching past Asgore for his pants. "There is always work to be done."

"Gaster, what have I told you about overworking yourself?"

"Nothing relevant to the reality of my job."

"I am the one who laid down the responsibilities of your job, and I know for a fact that you wildly overrun them so you can work instead of sleep."

"That's the nature of being a scientist," Gaster said with a haughty tone that again made Asgore smile in spite of himself.

"That's the nature of being Gaster."

"That's what I just said."

"You don't have to go."

"What else am I supposed to do then?" Gaster said with a huff. The conversation, as slight as it was, was doing wonders on giving Asgore back some kind of sense of normalcy, and it appeared that he wasn't alone. Gaster had lost that trembling fragility that he'd found so concerning, back to his normal prickly self.

Asgore couldn't say to him why he wanted him to stay... he wasn't sure he could even articulate it to himself. Guilt lingered in the air like mist, inescapable, building up with each breath. After everything he'd done... it just didn't seem right.

Asgore shifted his weight towards the edge of the bed, Gaster moving closer to the wall to get out of his way, and he laid out to block the path. He reached out with one big hand, pressed it against his chest, and laid Gaster down beside him.

He felt a little shock and shiver when he touched him, a tiny pulse of magic from his SOUL when he pushed him down, but it was small, something he wouldn't have noticed if he wasn't looking. Gaster waited for a few seconds, then turned his head towards him.

"Surely you don't intend to force me to sleep." _With you_ hung palpably in the air, but neither said it.

"You always need more sleep, Gaster," Asgore said, and he kept his arm where it was, pinning him down across his chest.

"I haven't scheduled any time for something like this, it's going to throw off my entire day tomorrow."

"Just close your eyes and relax."

"I _can't_ relax, what would even be the purpose of such a thing?"

It was easy in the well-worn treads of familiar bickering to tell himself he hadn't ruined everything, that he hadn't made a huge mistake, that he hadn't hurt Gaster irreparably, that he hadn't learned something he didn't want to know, and should have never known about him. That things hadn't changed, that things wouldn't change, that he hadn't lost him. That he didn't hate him for what he'd done, and what he didn't do, and what he couldn't bring himself to do. That things were different, things were the same, she was still here and Gaster was nestled between the two of them and everything was okay and would always be okay.

Asgore breathed out a long sigh, his eyelids feeling heavy. All the burdens of the world crushing him as he closed his eyes. "Stay with me."

Gaster didn't say anything for a few seconds, then finally sighed himself, a long-suffering one of defeat. But Asgore wanted to believe he didn't mind it so much.

Even if Gaster was too thin, there was something comforting about having someone else there as he tried to quiet down his thoughts to sleep. Another SOUL close to his own, another being, a bastion against the dark sea of his own mistakes. A buoy in the frightening unknown waters of loneliness. He hadn't been alone for so long.

He certainly didn't handle it well.

Gaster stayed tense and rigid, painfully aware of where he was and the contact between him and Asgore and unable to know what to do about either of those things. Then, when he succumbed to sleep, the tension all drifted out of him at once. Asgore could feel him loosen underneath his arm, the evenness of the pulse of his SOUL, the easy sound of his breathing.

A brief moment of peace. All that the two of them could manage. And all that someone like Asgore deserved, with what he'd done.

Gaster fit easily against his chest, quiet and still, and Asgore held onto him as he drifted off himself.

It was the least he could do.


End file.
